TCC team takes Most Creative/Entertaining award in
Dominion Enterprises' HackU2

Feb. 13, 2014 — In the towers of Dominion Enterprises in downtown Norfolk, in a room with a breathtaking view of the Elizabeth River, TCC students competed in the company’s third student hackathon, dubbed HackU2 and held on Feb. 6 and 7.

For the second year running, the TCC team took
one of the
top honors, this year earning the Most Creative/Entertaining Award.

“This is a great opportunity for collaboration and allows for an infusion of new ideas,” said Tabitha Anger, co-chair of the event and a mobile product analyst for Dominion Enterprises. “Our main goal is to give students hands-on experience in a business setting and to have them learn alongside our developers.”

The purpose of Team TCC’s game was to make searching for a job fun and productive. Users first connect the game to their LinkedIn profiles and select skills to use when searching for positions. During the game if the skills match, users gain a heart; if not, they get a skull. After earning three hearts, users can apply for the position. Three skulls result in moving forward to the next job.

Vidala coaches Krill and Burgner in developing the idea for the TCC game.

Tiffany and Butler create graphics for the job search game.

“Our idea was solid; we just had a lot to do to get it done on time,” Krill said.

The TCC team presents its concept during the HackU2 presentations.

Other participating schools were Old Dominion University, Virginia Commonwealth University, The College of William & Mary, TCC, ECPI University, Christopher Newport University and Norfolk State University.

“This has been a golden opportunity to dive into mobile app development and work alongside experts in the field,” Burgner said. “We all expanded our knowledge in a very short time.”

Dominion Coach Vamsi Vidala added, “It was great to teach what we do and to help scout for people to join us. It is a win-win for everyone.”